It's my idea of a sightseeing dream come true: to stroll into some of the most stunning homes in one of the world's most beautiful cities and catch a glimpse of how the locals live. Well, the wealthy ones anyway.

On the third weekend of June, the owners of some of Amsterdam's finest 16th- and 17th-century canal houses will open their doors and gardens to the public as part of the annual "Open Tuinen Dagen" (Open Gardens Days) scheme.

Of course, if you're after gardens, there are museums with beautifully renovated and tended grachtentuinen (canal gardens) open to visitors all-year around. These include the Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis, Willet-Holthuysen museum, Hermitage Amsterdam and Museum van Loon. The first two not only boast delightful gardens but also provide accurate depictions of how the early owners of the canal houses lived, with original furniture and restored décor.

Furthermore, a handful of hotels located along the Grachtengordel (canal belt), such as the Pulitzer Hotel and the Canal House, have wonderful gardens in which to enjoy tea and Dutch cakes, or a beer with hapjes, savoury snacks.

But I prefer walking through people's kitchens, sitting rooms and bedrooms to admire their gardens and it's this that makes Amsterdam's Open Gardens Days special. The owners take great pleasure in sharing their homes and appear to trust their guests implicitly. As one gentleman who has participated in the Open Gardens scheme for 10 years told me, he was once ticked off by a visitor, unaware that he was addressing the garden's owner, for subtly trying to remove a slug from a hosta.

The Open Gardens scheme is currently overseen by Tonko Grever, curator at the Museum van Loon, a horticultural historian and a keen gardener. Grever invites, encourages and persuades some 30 properties to take part in the event each year, which include private homes, offices and museums. The €15 (£13) fee paid by visitors to access all gardens over the three-day event goes toward a different horticultural project each year. The proceeds of this year's weekend (which is themed "Colour in the Canal Gardens") will go towards the renovation of the rosarium in the city's popular Vondelpark.

Once you've bought your passe-partout to the gardens and received a booklet with a brief description of each participating garden and a map with their locations, you're free to roam the canal belt (a Unesco World Heritage Site) and drop into as many of the gardens as you wish.

The majority follow traditional canal garden style, with trimmed box hedges in symmetrical shapes and patterns flanked by hostas and ferns and dotted with geraniums, roses and hydrangeas. The formality of the design was due to the gardens being primarily viewed from the first floor, as the ground floor was historically home to the kitchen and staff quarters.

Once the initial impact of stepping into these delightful little gardens wore off, I was struck by the peace within them. The tall canal houses block all sound from Amsterdam's streets and waterways and the urban hum is replaced by the song of countless birds in centuries-old copper beech and chestnut trees.

By no means do all the gardens adhere to the traditional, formal layout, with some a riot of tumbling roses, wisteria and jasmine overhanging dense camellias, rhododendrons and hydrangeas. Much like Amsterdam itself, the diversity of the gardens reflects the somewhat split personality of the Dutch people: strict and regulated on the one hand and tolerant, liberal and free-spirited on the other.

This dichotomy is probably nowhere more obvious than in the infamous Red Light District, where some of the city's oldest and most beautiful houses are home to scantily clad prostitutes, who display themselves casually to prospective clients and curious passers-by while filing their nails.

This area is host to another Amsterdam home secret – not hidden gardens this time, but one of Amsterdam's "secret" churches. Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic) is a schuilkerk (hidden church), one of several built during the 17th century when the Dutch Reformed Church banned Catholics and other religious dissenters from worshipping in public. Providing worship was carried out in private, in an unmarked building with no entrance from a main street, the Dutch Reformed Church chose to turn a blind eye, and small churches came to be secreted away in private homes.

Another hidden church can be found in the Begijnhof, an enchanting medieval courtyard in which the Catholic church provided homes for women who were unmarried and devoutly religious but did not take vows. While the original chapel was ceded to English Presbyterians in the 17th century, two small dwellings opposite were converted into a secret chapel, enabling the women to continue their worship. Today, the Begijnhof retains its sense of sanctuary, as the tall, gracious gabled houses overlook peaceful lawns, and is still the exclusive abode of unmarried or widowed women.

Looking behind the gables of Amsterdam to discover its hidden gardens, churches and history gives an insight into its people, but also reveals yet another pretty aspect of an already beautiful city.

I realised as I sang along with 17 Amsterdammers who had crammed into the tiny Café de Twee Zwaantjes one night that I couldn't have agreed more with the lyrics: "Geef mij maar Amsterdam, dat is mooier dan Parijs." "Just give me Amsterdam, it's prettier than Paris."